Trees by the Beach

 The trees down by the beach in Sayville have unusual shapes do to being exposed to the wind from the Great South Bay. They are gnarly and mishapen, but beautiful anyway.

Snow and Tree Sketch

The trees down by Sayville Beach are a bit crooked due to years of the weather events down there as well as the normal wind. I like how they are misshapened. 

Lamppost & Tree Bark

 These sketches fit items on the current Creative Spark Scavenger Hunt. It included a lamppost. Right now it is difficult to find a lamppost in any of the local towns that doesn't have some kind of decoration.

Another item was tree bark. I was near the Bayard Cutting Arboretum so I scooted in. Where else would it be easy to find an interesting tree? Both of the sketches here were done from the warmth of my mobile studio...it has been really windy and cold here lately.

Trees in Oakdale

 I was down by the bay near Timber Ridge, a golf community in Oakdale. There were still some green trees there.

First Snow Painting of 2022

Overnight into this morning we had our first significant snowfall. I think that here in Holbrook we got about 5-6 inches. It is always hard to tell. Although they had predicted a little more we lucked out. But it is very cold and what moisture remains on the roads will definitely turn to black ice by morning.

I decided I didn't need to be anywhere except home, so I pulled up the blinds in my living room and squashed myself between the window and sat on the edge of one of my end tables. If the Christmas tree wasn't up I could have sat on the other end table which has more room because the air conditioner isn't on that side. I used my sketch and wash pencil and a chocolate Derwent watercolor pencil to sketch out the scene. Then I went back in with watercolors and a bit more of the chocolate pencil.

I'm glad I sketched this when I did because about 2 hours later the wind had knocked most of the snow off the trees. 

Trees by the Water

 I was down by the bay beach in Sayville. It was a windy day but the trees looked good against the sky.

Winter Tree

Right now the colors on those trees that have needles or leaves is so different from the summer colors. I was down at a preserve near the water in Islip. This is some sort of fir tree and the needles look almost a mustard color mixed with a bit of green. With our mild winter I'm expecting to see early spring colors. Now that I've said that we will probably get snow. lol This is also an art postcard for the troops.